Our Offerings

Our undergraduate curriculum is designed to give you a sophisticated understanding of political processes, critical and independent thinking, writing and communication skills, and an analytical skill set. Our majors are highly successful, and pursue careers in diverse fields, including non-governmental and public interest organizations, think tanks, consulting, journalism, communications, local, state, and federal government, polling firms, finance, and business management. Many also go on to pursue graduate study in law, political science, public administration, or business administration.

Affiliated Certificate Programs

The Duke University Philosophy, Politics, & Economics (PPE) certificate offers interdisciplinary coursework for undergraduates seeking a credentialing program designed to integrate research in the fields of philosophy, political science, and economics. PPE is an interdisciplinary certificate program at Duke and a minor at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill that emerged to fill in some crucial gaps between the three disciplines, and to bring students a breadth of perspective they cannot get from a single discipline. Important issues ranging from health care allocation and global pandemics to nuclear weapons proliferation and climate change have moral, political, and economic dimensions. Economics and Political Science can help us understand these issues; Philosophy can help us evaluate different proposed solutions to them. PPE students learn to look at the world through different windows, and to think about the relative role of markets and political institutions in promoting human welfare.

The Decision Sciences certificate (DECSCI) at Duke University focuses on how humans make decisions in a variety of contexts – including economic, political and social choices. If you are interested in behavioral economics, game theory, machine learning or neuroeconomics, this certificate will provide an interdisciplinary appreciation for how these (often) separate fields all approach decision making. This will enable communication and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries and will allow you to engage in research with a broader perspective than that provided by any single major.